Strascinati

strah-shee-NAH-tee

Hand-formed Basilicata

Disc of dough dragged across the board with the fingers, larger and flatter than orecchiette.

Cut end, to scale.
25 mm wide, 2.5 mm thick

Name. Dragged, from strascinare.

How to cook strascinati: 6 to 10 minutes, with a timer

What it is

Strascinati are the dragged pasta of Basilicata and Puglia: a piece of semolina dough pulled across a ridged board with two or three fingers so it becomes a rough, curled oval. They are larger and flatter than orecchiette and often ridged from the board.

In Basilicata they carry cruschi peppers, breadcrumbs, and a pork ragu.

How to cook strascinati

6 to 10 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.

Custom, minutes

6:00

Start when the water returns to the boil.

Water and salt

People

Pasta, dry: 400 g
Water: 4 L
Salt: 40 g

100 g per person as a main. A litre and 10 g of salt per 100 g. Adjust with the portion calculator.

The steps

Bring 4 L of water to a full boil in a tall pot. Add 40 g of salt when it boils.
Add the strascinati. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
Fresh pasta has no dry core. It is done when it is tender, not when it resists.
Scoop out a cup of the cooking water. Drain, or lift the pasta straight into the pan.
Toss with the sauce over the heat for a minute. Add cooking water a splash at a time until it clings.

Read more: what al dente means and why the pasta water matters. Times for every shape are on the cook page.

How it holds sauce

Rough, thick, and open, so they take a sausage ragu, fried crumbs and dried peppers, or a tomato with ricotta.

Pairs with: Sausage ragu · Meat ragu · Pomodoro · Ricotta

Classic plates: Strascinati con peperoni cruschi e mollica, Strascinati al ragu lucano.

Nutrition

Per 100 g of dry semolina pasta. The shape does not change these numbers. The dough does, so a whole wheat or egg version of this shape reads differently. See every dough.

Per 100 g	Energy	Protein	Carbohydrate	Fibre	Fat	Sodium	Iron
Dry	371 kcal	13.0 g	74.7 g	3.2 g	1.5 g	6 mg	3.3 mg
Cooked	158 kcal	5.8 g	30.9 g	1.8 g	0.9 g	1 mg	1.3 mg

One portion. 100 g dry becomes about 235 g cooked, 371 kcal and 13 g of protein. Pasta takes on 2.3 times its weight in the pot.

No strascinati? Use these

Ranked by how they behave with sauce, not how they look. Full substitute list.

Orecchiette

Hand-formed · Puglia

The smaller Puglian cup

Cavatelli

Hand-formed · Puglia

The rolled southern shell

Lorighittas

Hand-formed · Sardinia

Same family, also solid, also rough, shares 3 sauces

Side by side

Easy to confuse with

Orecchiette

Hand-formed · Puglia

small domed disc, rough on the outside, dragged over the board with a knife

Cavatelli

Hand-formed · Puglia

small dumpling with a hollow, rolled under two fingers

Capunti

Hand-formed · Puglia

long cavatelli dragged with three fingers, like an open pea pod

Other names

strascenate, strascinate, orecchiette grandi.

Fresh versus dried pasta: neither is better, they are different foods
The difference between fresh and dried pasta: dough, texture, cook time, storage, and which shapes and sauces belong to each.

Sources

Cook time: fresh, by maker.
USDA FoodData Central (nutrition per 100 g, by dough: FDC 169736, Pasta, dry, enriched; FDC 169737, Pasta, cooked, enriched, without added salt), public domain. The cooked yield is derived from the two energy figures.
Q3975865, Wikidata
Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.